Minor awards of the Tour de France (thing)

Sure. Every rider in the Tour de France wants to win the Tour de France. I mean, nobody knows who finished 33rd in last years' race. The yellow jersey and the trophy at the end are the end all be all of the race.

However, sometime around the feel good Eighties, the Tour decided that more awards needed to be handed out, and so they created a number of minor awards that had almost no bearing on the race or even the people who won the awards. Luckily, such awards were short-lived, and for the most part vanished into obscurity, along with their winners.

Best Teammate

1984 - Bernard Bourreau (Fra)

1985 - Thierry Claveyrolat (Fra)

1986 - Bruno Leali (Ita)

Most Friendly Rider

1980 - Vicente Belda (Esp)

1985 - Czeslaw Lang (Pol)

1986 - Peio Ruiz Cabestany (Esp)

1987 - Frédéric Brun (Fra)

Fair Play Award

1986 - Joop Zoetemelk (Ned)

1994 - Dzamolidine Abduzhaparov (Uzb)

All of this is in addition to the green jersey (sprints leader, a somewhat more convoluted ranking entirely different from pure time), the white jersey (best young rider), and the polka-dot jersey (best mountain rider), which, while individually have more meaning than these awards, are just as equally futile when you get right down to it. Of course, as anthropod points out, these jerseys are specifically there to give the 90% of racers who don't have a chance at winning the entire Tour a reason to still compete. Winning a stage only merits a small cup, but can be as equally thrilling for a rider as any other sports victory.

On the other hand, it's nice to see someone win something in France for a change.